Continuing the inquiries begun in 113Y-114Y, the IPHS 215 seminar addresses the rise of modernism, which represented a massive fissure in Western consciousness. A fault line visible since Romanticism suddenly fractured. One consequence was that something utterly unique, highly unsettling, and profoundly revolutionary occurred: the role of art and the artist leapt into extraordinary prominence. Why in modernism do the issues of "self," "society," and "authority" figure so prominently in the aesthetic domain? What does the signal role of art suggest about the character of modernism itself? How successful has art been as the focal point of questions regarding authority? Is art's centrality itself a paradoxical response to the issues of complexity, specialization, fragmentation, and relativity which inform the modern world?

In view of modernism's paradoxes and chief concerns, we will address contending views of art and authority in terms of the following themes: (1) art and the artist; (2) art and memory; (3) art and order; (4) art and technology; and (5) art and rebellion. Readings will include Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Mann, Woolf, Proust, Kafka, and Camus, among others. Films will include Modern Times, Triumph of the Will, Metropolis, Rashomon, and Blow Up. This course may be used as 1/2 unit of history for purposes of meeting the diversification requirements.